Thursday, January 24, 2013

Monday, January 21, 2013

Great, great looking problems and rock, maybe perfect rock.
Chris seems pretty cool and unlike most top end boulderers he looks like he could crack some skulls, not that he would. I think if I found and climber a problem like Fin Depedance I think I would give up. Perfect movement.

I'm sure there must a place like this in Ireland - minus the ice. The granite in Dunaff in Inishowen is similar, wave smoothed and very, very clean.

It's a big deal to say best ever. It's a summary of everything that happened so far, it's calling the top. Implicit is that it means 'best so far', but if like Sergey Bubka, the Ukrainian pole vaulter, you are constantly probing the limits of your sport or of hyperbole, you will loose credibility if 'best ever' starts to sound a lot like 'most recent'.

I got out yesterday and put some work in on my project. The day was very damp, drizzling at times but fortunately the project stayed bone thanks to its steepness. I can't imagine there was much bouldering done in Glendo by the IBLers.

Maybe some progress on the first move, which is the crux, but the other moves felt harder than I remembered. Need to do more fingerboarding and work on the core. It's hard and it's good and I'm optimistic that I will get there, then I can retire from high level bouldering.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

This is to a certain extent a follow up to my post about the climbing scene, that post generated some interesting discussion and I hope this one will too.

Above is a chart I did up of IBL attendances over the last four years. From October '09 up to yesterday. I couldn't find the results for a few so they are missing. The point is that there is certainly no uptick in attendances at IBLs. The IBL is supposed to be the people's competition. Informal and social.

So where is the bounce caused by the opening of the two new walls in Dublin? I don't think it really has materialised? Has there been an increase in the numbers going bouldering? I haven't seen it but that doesn't mean anything as I'm rarely in Glendo at weekends? Can anyone comment?

The bouldering forum on theshortspan is very quiet, the climbing.ie forum is mostly all lost+found and stuff for sale.

There is a lot of talk about climbing getting into the Olympics and how great this will be. Debatable I would think. In reality, from what I have read, climbing doesn't have a chance in hell of getting in. I have heard a lot of talk - from climbers - assuming it's a certainty. At best it's a 1 in 7 shot but in reality the odds are longer than that.

I don't see a lot of new routes been done. I was in the quarry a bit over the summer and it never seemed that busy.

Is Irish climbing in hibernation? Does anyone care? Do I have a point? No.